Writer Patricia Lockwood won the 2024 Gabe Hudson Prize, worth $10,000. The award, named after the late author and editor, recognizes works of fiction with “humor, pathos, and a deep understanding of contemporary America.”
The jury highlighted her novel Will There Ever Be Another You, a dark and comic story about a woman’s crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The phrases and passages dazzle us with beauty or leave us reeling with laughter. There is so much pain in the book and yet there is no self-pity; instead, there is a wonderful self-awareness about how ridiculous it is to be human,” the judges noted.
An award with history
The Hudson was created in 2024 by Sanchia Semere, the writer’s mother, and is managed by the McSweeney’s publishing house. Gabe Hudson, who died in 2023 at age 52, was the author of Dear Mr. President, editor-in-chief of McSweeney’s, and professor at Yonsei University, among other institutions.
Lockwood was already recognized for Priestdaddy, winner of the James Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2018, and for No One Is Talking About This, a Booker finalist in 2021. About the award, she commented:
“He was a truly generous literary citizen, with a rich career: a writer of funny and devastating stories, an inventive novelist, someone who encouraged others. He was a Marine, like my brother, and a teacher in South Korea, in the same neighborhood where my husband grew up.”
Without meeting each other in person, Lockwood felt an immediate kinship with Hudson. The award, still young, is already betting on voices that combine humor and depth in complex times.
